“No, an extremely mentionable, mentioned indeed by all here who can admire beauty, genius, and the warmest heart in the world.”
“There spoke a lover!” says the Duchess, fixing him with her clear eyes. “I know who she is now. She is the lady of the Embassy. Oh, I have heard all about her. Well, cousin, I like you for bowing to her while you sat with me. You could have made as though you did not see her. It was like you. I think all the Hamiltons are gentlemen.”
“Madam, not even for your Grace’s good opinion would I slight the woman I love best in the world. Yet I am thankful it approves mine.”
“Tell me about her. I have heard so many scandals since I came that the truth would be of interest. Is she of the common sort—or what?”
Let Sir William’s speech be imagined rather than related. He painted her for the Duchess as no other voice, not even Romney’s nor yet his brush, could have painted her. Her heart, her purity, her intellect, her extraordinary accomplishments (indeed the Duchess had heard much of the latter), all were passed in review with a lover’s fondness.
She listened without a frown. In that perfumed languid air it was perhaps more irksome to sit in judgment than in the grey chills of England, but in any case she considered her station too high to be bound by any other opinion than her own. Her Grace was accustomed to say that the working class and the aristocratic are a law unto themselves in matters of morals and that it is but the middle class who skulk and hypocritize. It may be observed that she coined her words as well as her views and was more likely to be friendly with the farmer’s wife than the lawyer’s lady.
Therefore she brought an unprejudiced mind to hear on Sir William’s story, which included neither Up Park nor Edgware Row nor the appurtenances thereof. The picture presented to her mind was that of a young and pure-minded woman submerged by cruel fate and gifted with beauty and genius worthy of the highest, the widest opportunity. Let the reader judge how far she was deceived.
When Sir William had finished, she, noting meanwhile with some compassion how the clear sunlight emphasized the lines of sixty years in his face, answered kindly enough.
“I see how your interest is engaged, and indeed the story is a very singular one. I see also that you would willingly engage my sympathy for the young person, and ’tis so easily engaged where courage and beauty are concerned that I must needs say I prefer to give my judgment a little play also. What is her position in the society of Naples?”
“Why, madam, the Queen is much interested and has said often to me that she would willingly make her acquaintance, but you are aware ’tis impossible she should be received at Court. The King used to call at the Palazzo Sessa to sing duos with her—ill enough for a King!—but, as you know his reputation with women, Emma in her discretion judged it best to stop that diversion of His Majesty’s, which much gratified the Queen, and made her favour secure in that quarter. The Neapolitan ladies treat her with every courtesy, and God knows ’twere ridiculous otherwise, as not one is without her lover. As for the English ladies, some visiting here, of high birth, like my Lady Diana Beauclerck and the artist Mrs. Darner, have not disdained her, but they are more or less ladies errant in the eyes of the English resident here, and I must own the residents defy the Embassy and all its works. They will not see that such genius as Emma’s makes its own laws—”